


This Mortal Coil

by cable69



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5667589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cable69/pseuds/cable69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones: I thought you said men like us don’t have families.<br/>Kirk: I was wrong.<br/>—Star Trek V: The Final Frontier</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Mortal Coil

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on ff.net; unedited

There is some comfort in dying surrounded by one’s children.  
—Ann Radcliffe

Bones: I thought you said men like us don’t have families.  
Kirk: I was wrong.  
—Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

x

One: McCoy.

“I… I thought I was gonna die,” McCoy coughs. There is blood dripping from his mouth and ears. The sword that has been thrust through the middle of him is barbed and cannot be removed. Kirk is fumbling at the medkit, but he knows there is nothing he can do.

“You will not die,” Spock promises, trying and failing to preserve his cool mask. He is leaning over McCoy, his uniform covered in McCoy’s blood. It is him, his dying CMO, and Kirk, in the burned-out ruins of the Romulan command center. The machine that was going to destroy the space station and all of its ten thousand inhabitants has been demolished, and its Romulan controllers are dead. But one was alive enough to run McCoy through as McCoy fired on the machine.

“I’m glad I’m not alone,” McCoy whispers. Kirk has abandoned the medkit by now and is leaning over McCoy, his hand touching McCoy’s cheek. McCoy’s fingers are wrapped around Kirk’s wrist, and Spock is holding McCoy’s shoulder, so that they form a triangle.

“You’ll never be alone, Bones,” whispers Kirk. He presses a chaste kiss to McCoy’s forehead, and Spock strokes McCoy’s cheek with the hand McCoy is holding onto. 

“You will never be alone,” Spock repeats.

“Thank you,” McCoy says, his voice weak, and he is gone.

x

Two: Spock.

“The vaccine,” says Spock, holding the vial out to the elders. “Send it to your labs for replication. It should cure the infected population with great rapidity.”

The elders bow to him. “We thank you for bringing it to us,” they say as one. “We thank you for your life.”

Spock bows to them. “The continuation of your race is more important than a single life,” he says easily. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

“Or the one,” say the elders. They gaze into the sky, listening with their strange power to the voices on board the Enterprise. “Your crew did not know that Vulcans were susceptible to the disease. They allowed you to go because they thought you would have more resistance, not less.”

Spock touches his communicator, which he has turned off. “I could not risk their lives,” Spock says. “Vulcans are either unaffected, or very badly affected, depending a varying set of genes, while humans would become sick no matter what. There was no way of knowing if I had those genes or not, so I told them that I would be safe.” He followed their gaze into the sky. For a moment, he wished he could be up there, back on the ship, but his place was here, with these elders, helping to save lives.

“They are sad for you,” say the elders. “Yet they express it strangely—with anger. They are shouting and cursing, but there is water falling from their eyes.”

“Humans are a most illogical species,” says Spock. He feels the weakness seeping into his bones and sits on the ground before the elders. “After the disease has passed from me, return my body to the Enterprise.”

“We will do so,” say the elders, watching as he lays down, the energy draining from his muscles so that he can no longer hold himself up. He did not expect it to be this fast, but there is nothing he can do.

“Live long and prosper,” he tells them, and after a time he dissolves into sleep, and long after that, his breathing fades and his heartbeat ceases.

x

Three: Chekov.

Scotty and Chekov are laughing over what Sulu has just said. They are down in Engineering, playing poker, and Chekov and Sulu think Scotty is cheating because he’s winning so much.

Kirk comes over the intercom and asks for more power as the ship goes to red alert. Sulu rushes back to the bridge, but Chekov stays to help Scotty, who can only give Kirk more power if he connects a couple of lines in the backup drive. Scotty asks Chekov if he can get the switch in Jeffries tube 37.8 turned to blue, and Chekov says he can. Scotty coaxes the engines into giving Kirk warp nine. But they need more, Kirk says. If they don’t accelerate to ten, their pursuers will close and destroy the ship.

Scotty knows that Chekov has heard what Kirk said, and he runs as fast as he can towards the Jeffries tube Chekov is undoubtedly already inside. Chekov knows the ship as well as he does. Chekov knows exactly what has to be done to push the ship to warp ten. 

Scotty is actually there when Chekov finally finds the right wires, yelling at him to stop, screaming that they have time. But there is no time for protective gear, no time even for gloves, or an oxygen mask—not that they would have helped. Chekov barely connects the wires before he is electrocuted. The Enterprise leaps immediately to warp ten.

Scotty retires within a week. Pike himself has to come talk Kirk out of doing the same.

x

Four: Uhura.

They need a translator.

Kirk radios up to the Enterprise. He clearly does not want to say what he has to say, but he can’t speak the languages, and the Baaleths are about to kill thousands of Rorvian children. Spock can hear the pain in Kirk’s voice. McCoy is foaming at the mouth—everybody knows the captain is badly injured. The Baaleths are not letting anybody beam down, not even a doctor. But evidently they are now willing to negotiate, so they let Kirk send for a translator.

Uhura is firm with the Baaleths, firmer than the Rorvians knew they could be. They are a proud race, but they are not human—they do not think the same way humans do. They had never considered standing up to the Baaleths before. 

Things are going downhill because the Baaleths are belligerent and violent. Kirk, both of his legs broken, is away from the action, lying against a rock near the edge of the open field, wishing dearly he could help, but barely able to stay conscious. He watches as Uhura gesticulates forcefully. She is defying the Baaleths.

“No,” she says coldly to their leader. “You will not shoot.”

“I will do as we wish!” the Baaleth reader roars. “Fire!” His men turn their guns on the crowd of Rorvian children and Uhura and all of the Rorvians react as a single mass, screaming forwards in horror and rage. She is one of the first to fall, riddled with bullets.

The Rorvians overpower the Baaleths. A quarter of their children are dead, but more would have perished had they not acted.

Kirk will forever walk with a limp. 

x

Five: Scotty.

It is the strangest way for him to go, like this, in this ocean. He is in the middle of a sea, completely alone. He is going to drown.

He is well aware of this.

He can only float for so long. The salt is starting to crust on his hands and clothes. His phaser and communicator are long gone, lost in the storm. 

He knows he didn’t have to fall overboard. He knows he didn’t even have to volunteer for the mission. But he had never really seen the sea before. He had never sailed it. The Enterprise had to leave quickly to go save some other planet and he and Sulu and Spock had to get the grain to Yralt somehow, so they had hired a boat, which Scotty had always secretly hoped they would do anyway.

And now look where it has landed him.

The sun is so hot. His skin hurts dully, but he isn’t thinking about that. He is thinking about falling overboard. It had been so stupid of him, but he was the one closest to the five sailors who had fallen into the water. He had grabbed the rope and realized that no matter how hard he could throw it, it would never reach them. So he’d thrown his own self overboard and somehow, God knows how, managed to get to them. 

And somehow, God knew how that had happened, too, gotten lost in the storm.

And now, here he is, floating on the sea—flotsam, a barnacle, a patch of weed.

He has nothing else to do. He gives his heart one last beat, his lungs one last breath, and relaxes his muscles. He will go soon anyway, and he might as well go on his own terms.

The sea consumes him.

x

Six: Kirk.

Kirk is screaming for everybody to run. He’s always in charge, so they obey him, sprinting flat-out, flat-footed, up the hillside, batting frantically at the low-hanging tree branches in their way. They hear roars behind them, the vicious snarls of the haker-beast, and the short bzzt sounds of phaser-fire. They are all science officers, and they have no weapons—this was supposed to be a peaceful mission.

Chekov is shepherding the people at the back, and they think he is Kirk, and Chekov thinks Kirk is leading everyone.

Kirk is behind them, firing uselessly at the haker-beast, which is bearing down on him. The team is so close to the river, but they are not going to make it if the haker-beast gets past him. He knows that it does not have much interest in a single human, especially one so fearless. It wants all of the humans, and it is large enough to kill every one of them in seconds, if it reaches the fleeing crowd.

It starts to pass him, but Kirk cannot let it do that. He throws himself on its tail and it turns, howling, and picks him up. He fires into its hand and it howls again, but is still not injured, even at a close range.

Kirk scrabbles desperately at the claws surrounding him, but the haker-beast is too large, and too angry, and too hungry.

It bites off his head.

x

Seven: Sulu

Sulu stares at the readout.

“Priority shifted to alpha one,” he repeats hollowly into the comm. His voice echoes around the empty shuttle. Uhura takes a moment to respond, and when she does so, it is in a different done of voice than he has ever heard her use.

“The captain will not give the order,” she says softly.

Sulu closes his eyes.

“Hikaru.” It’s Kirk’s voice. He’s joined the channel. Oh, God, Kirk is calling him by his first name. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t have any choice,” says Sulu, staring at the screen. The guns are about to fire; he has to act now. “It was an honor serving with all of you.”

“Hikaru,” whispers Uhura. “Hikaru, please—”

Sulu cuts off the radio and presses the shuttle controls before he can talk himself out of it. He spirals downwards, in a tailspin, and goes out in fire.

They cannot even estimate how many lives he saved.

x


End file.
